[Sidenote: 4. Coolies on Steamer.] Our vessel carries nearly two thousand coolies, natives of Madras, going to Burma to work in the rice mills or on the wharves, for Burma is a thinly peopled land. It has great natural resources, which are being rapidly developed by British capital. The coolies take passage as deck passengers for a few rupees, and each on landing at Rangoon has to undergo a searching medical examination, because the Plague is often carried from Madras to Burma. The disease manifests itself first by swollen glands, especially under the arms. The contagion, caused by a minute organism, is conveyed by rats. This terrible sickness is one of the worst scourges of modern India. It first broke out in Bombay in August, 1896. Since that date there have been three years in each of which a million deaths were due to it. As time goes on the mortality will probably decrease, for the first onslaught of a new disease is generally deadly. We must beware, however, of exaggerating its significance. There are three hundred million people in the Indian Empire, and the death rate by plague, even at its maximum, is therefore not very high. It is, indeed, low as compared with the death rate by malarial fever. [Sidenote: 5. Chinese Junk in the Rangoon River.] After a probably rough passage, we approach the low-lying shore of the great delta of the Irawaddy river, and enter that branch of it which is known as the Rangoon river. A stray Chinese junk reminds us of the fact that we are entering Indo-China, and of the trade relations of Burma with Singapore and the regions of the Far East. Burmese rice is sent to China, the Malay States, India, East Africa, and Europe. Rangoon depends for her commerce mainly on the rice harvest. In recent years, famines in India have been mitigated by rice exported from Rangoon. [Sidenote: 6. Map of Burma.] As we steam up the river for some miles inland, let us consider, with the help of a map, the main features of the geography of the land which we are about to visit. In this map is shown nearly the whole of the great southeastward peninsula of Asia. The areas which are coloured green are lowland, those which are yellow are upland, and the brown signifies highland and mountain. A ridge of highland, broken only at two or three points, runs southward through the centre of the map, separating Burma and the river basins of the Indian Ocean from Siam and the river basins of the Pacific Ocean. This great divide of the drainage is continued beyond the southern edge of the map through the Malay Peninsula for some distance. It ends near Singapore in the southernmost point of Asia, only one degree north of the Equator.